Rocket Republic Brewing Company owner/brewer Eric Crigger is talking about integrating peanut butter into one of the Huntsville beer-maker's flagship styles, the AstroNut Brown Ale.

Crigger, 40, adds, "AstroNut has kind of a chocolaty, roasty flavor to it already so I came up with idea to add peanut butter to it to complement those flavors, not unlike Reese's Peanut Butter cups. We made the conscious decision to use real peanut butter in this beer. We actually use a dehydrated peanut butter powder, it's de-fatted. They remove the fat because it's not good for head retention and nobody likes oily beer, so it works really well in there.

"What it actually does in there is create a very subtle peanut butter flavor. We still wanted the beer to taste like beer – with a hint of peanut butter."

Local craft-beer enthusiasts can expect to find Peanut Butter AstroNut, a 5.8 percent ABV (alcohol by volume) libation, at places including Madison retailer Wish You Were Beer, located at 7407 Hwy. 72 W., Ste. G, and Huntsville-area restaurants. "It's difficult to tell you exactly where because a lot of places rotate their taps to keep their selections fresh for customers," Crigger says.

RR debuted the Peanut Butter AstroNut with two small pilot batches, first for a Below The Radar beer dinner and the second for a recent Wish You Were Beer tasting. "The response has been pretty amazing, so we went ahead and ramped up and did a large batch of it," Crigger says.

Rocket Republic contract-brews their beer at Blue Pants Brewery's Madison facility. In early May, RR went through about 16 six-barrel kegs of its Vapor Trail Cream Ale and Mach 1 IPA at Huntsville barbecue festival WhistleStop weekend, and rolled out Dark Matter Belgian Dark Strong Ale, a 10 percent ABV malty beer with plum and raisin characters, and Pomegranate Wheat, 5.2 percent ABV and made with 100-percent all-natural flavors, at the 6th Annual Rocket City Brewfest.